Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed they be for ever.
from Chapter 9 The Flight of the Noldor
I took The Silmarillion to camp with me the summer of 1978. I’d gotten it for Christmas the previous year, but I was put off by its Biblical diction. Still, I was determined to make my way through it. I mean, Tolkien was my favorite author, and I’d already read The Hobbit twice and Lord of the Rings, including the appendices.
I did read it that summer in the woods of Upper Delaware Valley. For all the activities, there was always free time to read, and read I did. Beside Tolkien’s book, I read Cajus Bekker’s A War Diary of the German Luftwaffe. Bekker’s book was a relatively easy undertaking, Tolkien’s was not.
Cover for Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness by Wayne Barlow
Originally published in August 1991, Tor Double #36 offers two stories by Fritz Leiber, doubling the number of his stories included in the series. It also brings the official Tor Double series to an end, although just as I began by looking at a proto-volume in the series, I’ll be covering one last Tor Double next which, which was never published.
Conjure Wife was an originally published in Unknown Worlds in April 1943. The novel would eventually be awarded a Retro-Hugo, beating out works by C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner, Herman Hesse, C.S. Lewis, A.E. van Vogt, and Leiber, himself. The novel is also listed in James Cawthorn & Michael Moocock’s Fantasy: The 100 Best Books and David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels.
The novel follows Norman Saylor, a sociology professor at a small, conservative liberal arts college, Hempnell College. Saylor’s life is going well, he and his wife, Tansy, have a large circle of friends, his students respect him, and he is up for appointment to head the sociology department. Despite these seemingly close relationships with Tansy and their friends, most of the novel is focused on Norman’s thoughts and broodings, with little real interaction with anyone, certainly not over the important matters that concern him.
To Leave a Warrior Behind (McClelland & Stewart, January 20, 2026)
Charles Saunders, the Father of Sword & Soul, was one of the most talented and beloved heroic fantasy writers of the last fifty years. That he died unknown, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Nova Scotia in June 2020, is one of the great tragedies of our genre.
The thing about great writers is that they don’t stay buried. When the news of Charles’ untimely death began to spread, it was met with an outpouring of grief and heartfelt tributes. David C. Smith wrote the touching memorial Charles, My Friend in December 2020, and Michael de Adder produced a superb comic strip bio for the Washington Post three years after his death. Greg Mele wrote Black Gate‘s obituary, and Seth Lindberg crafted a detailed survey of his most famous work in the Imaro Series Tour Guide. And a year after Charles’s death, Jon Tattrie raised $17,000 to erect a gravestone to mark his grave.
Now comes word of a more enduring tribute, and one that I hope will help the world understand and appreciate Charles’ remarkable legacy. Jon Tattrie, who worked alongside Charles for two years at the Halifax Daily News, has written To Leave a Warrior Behind: The Life and Stories of Charles R. Saunders, the Man Who Rewrote Fantasy, which will be released in hardcover next month from McClelland & Stewart.
Balzan of the Cat People: The Blood Stones (Pyramid Books, May 1975). Cover artist unknown
Writing under the name Wallace Moore, Gerard F. Conway (1952 -), produced a 1970s trilogy billed as “The Tarzan of Outer Space.” Conway is known mostly for his comic book writing for Marvel and DC, where he wrote as Gerry Conway and is best known for co-creating the Punisher in 1974. He also has some TV and film credits, including for Conan the Destroyer.
I haven’t read any of his comics but have read the first two in his trilogy, and I own the third. I bought them because they have been billed as Sword & Planet fiction. I suppose they fit, although they’re not exactly typical, being more Tarzan than John Carter. The covers certainly stress that resemblance.
Chris Gunter’s choice for the best vintage paperbacks of 2025. Finally a socially relevant Year’s Best list
Ah, the end of the year. When social media — and my email in-box — are filled with Best of the Year lists.
I’m not complaining. I love ’em. But the ones I most enjoy are (of course) lists that include delightful old paperbacks finds. Or are maybe, I dunno, exclusively old paperbacks, since that’s about 90% of my own reading these days.
This year I especially enjoyed old books by Lin Carter (Flashing Swords 2), Jerry Pournelle (West of Honor), C.J. Cherryh (Faded Sun: Kutath) and Clifford D. Simak (City). Not too surprisingly, my favorite 2025 Best of the Year list (so far) has been a short post by Chris Gunter on the Vintage Paperback and Pulp Forum on Facebook, which enthusiastically included classics by Alfred Bester, Keith Roberts, Bob Shaw and others.
Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom (Simon & Schuster, February 2012). Cover by Mark Zug
Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom has “Inspired by the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs” on the cover. I hesitated about picking this one up. A note on the back said: “Not licensed or authorized, or in any way affiliated with, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.” This suggested some kind of controversy surrounding the publication and it seems awfully easy these days to step on toes and get hated for it. I don’t enjoy that kind of thing. But, it had stories by Joe Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, and S. M. Stirling in it, and I knew all three of those could write. So I pulled the trigger.
Overall, I found the anthology enjoyable, and even though it seemed generally marketed for “teen” readers, the stories were far from simple and unsophisticated. I thought there were three particularly strong stories, as well as several others I liked a lot.
Cover for Universe and Silent Thunder by Joe DeVito
Tor Double #35 is the penultimate volume in the Tor Double series and also the final multi-author offering, originally published in July 1991. A throwback to the early volumes in the series, this volume, although only having a single cover, has embossed title text for the first time since volume #19.
Universewas originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1941. Although not the first generation ship story, Universe is a relatively early example of the subgenre and Heinlein’s first foray into it, although he would return to it in the future, eventually published Universe and its sequel “Common Sense” as the novel Orphans of the Sky.
Messenger of Zhuvastou (Berkley Medallion, March 1973). Cover by Jeff Jones
Part I of The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt is here.
I’ve read two unabashed Sword & Planet novels from Andrew J. Offutt, Messenger of Zhuvastou, and Chieftain of Andor. I thought I had a sequel to the Andor book in my TBR piles but on closer examination it’s the same book with a different title: Clansman of Andor.
Messenger of Zhuvastou features an Earthman named Moris Keniston, the son of a Senator, although this is on a future Earth where humans have begun to spread to the stars. He heads for a primitive, barbaric world called Hellene in search of Elaine Dixon, a woman he is in love with who has been taken there — either voluntarily or involuntarily. Since the planet is supposed to be left undisturbed by galactic civilization, Moris undergoes plastic surgery to make him fit in with the humanoid natives. We already know he has been an Olympic level athlete and is a trained fencer.
So, once again I have entered the world of TikTok. This one is very old now, in the lightning fast news cycle that is that particular platform, so I’m rather behind the ball on commenting on it. For a few reasons for this. One, I’m old (ish. In internet terms, I mean). I simply cannot move at the speed TikTok seems to demand. Two, the one really got under my skin, despite not being one of the group targeted. So I wanted to take the time to calm down before approaching it. And third, I feel like I’ve covered this topic more than once, and I’m very annoyed that I feel compelled to tackle it once again. But here we are.
It is, of course, the weird, irritating, and erroneous snobbery between genres.
My Lord Barbarian (Del Rey, April 1977). Cover by Boris Vallejo
Andrew J. Offutt (1934 -2013) wrote a lot of books and I’m going to talk about him more as I go along. He wrote several Conan pastiches and a whole series of pastiches about Robert E. Howard’s character Cormac Mac Art. He also wrote porn or near porn in several genres under pseudonyms, which I’ll get around to. He has several S&P novels to his credit. Here’s one.
My Lord Barbarian was billed as a Sword and Planet novel, but it didn’t have much of the feel of such a novel to me. It was indeed set on another planet (several in fact), and the setting is S & P — an artificial solar system created by an advanced human civilization which has fallen into decay. Most worship “Siense” (Science) as a God now.
